rifratta

Rifratta is an Italian term that functions as an adjective and past participle describing something that has undergone refraction. It derives from rifrazione, the process by which waves change direction when passing between media with different refractive indices. In Italian, rifratta is most commonly used with nouns referring to light or other waves, for example la luce rifratta or un fascio rifratto, to denote light that has been bent by traversing a boundary such as a lens or a prism.

In optics, the concept of refraction is governed by Snell’s law, which relates the incident angle to the refracted angle according to the refractive indices of the two media. A refracted beam changes direction and speed as it enters the new medium, and it can form a refracted image. The term rifratta supports descriptions of the resulting light path and image formation in instruments like telescopes, cameras, and corrective lenses.

Linguistically, rifratta can appear in descriptive or pedagogical Italian to convey that light or waves have been refracted, and it is typically translated as “refracted” in English. Outside technical contexts, the word is less common in everyday language.

See also: refraction, Snell’s law, prism, lens.